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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899230">The Fourth Impossible Thing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth'>DameRuth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flowers [44]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Drama, Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:22:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,798</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Tenth Doctor becomes the Eleventh in the Flowersverse.</p><p>[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, originally posted  2010.04.15. Here ends the Flowersverse. There may, someday, be more Flowersverse fic written, set before this by internal chronology, but it just wouldn't be the same without Rose and Ten; admittedly, it would be an interesting challenge seeing where Eleven would go in this setting, but that's more than I have the time or energy to fully map out, to be honest. I do think everyone would be better off emotionally, though; relationships don't get any easier, but sometimes we get better at dealing with them.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flowers [44]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/14017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Fourth Impossible Thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>While I'm taking advantage of having some computer time to transfer a big pile of fic from LJ to Teaspoon (I really did have quite a backlog built up, and there's more to come), here's what <i>really is</i> the last Flowers story.  I used to say that was going to be "Untouched By Frost," but I turned out to be a liar, because that 'verse has just kept spinning out new story after new story, many of which take place after "Frost."</p><p>  <span>I'd had this piece written up for a long time, intending to post it once I had "Frost" finished . . . but given how long that fic's been a WIP, I decided to post this to LJ immediately before "The End of Time" aired, just to get it in before canon solidified the Tenth Doctor's canon passing.  Then Things Happened, I got distracted, and only now did I remember I needed to post it here, too.  Better late than never, I guess.</span></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack exhaled slowly, his breath pluming out in white frost, as he watched the Doctor making his final round of inspection.  It was cold in this little half-bubble of air on the flank of a dead world.  The blue lights of the perimeter stakes glowed brightly, indicating that they were generating an adequate force field, and the TARDIS’s open doors pumped out air and warmth to fill the invisible hemisphere, but even Time Lord technology could only accomplish so much against the vacuum of space.<br/>
<br/>
Jack shoved his hands more deeply into his greatcoat pockets and tried not to think about what was going to happen.  He also did his best to ignore the agonized ghosts twisting in his peripheral vision and making his skin crawl.  Fixed point in the Universe or not, Jack was normally as Time-blind as any other human, but in <i>this</i> place, even he could sense echoes of the terrible event that had ripped apart reality and removed an entire solar system from the continuum: planets, moons, people and two suns, lost for eternity.<br/>
<br/>
This hunk of black rock orbiting a green-bronze sun was the nearest neighbor of that forgotten catastrophe, which was why Jack was here, watching a Time Lord walk one last time around an intricately piled pyramid of wood, crowned with a still, shrouded form.  The Doctor moved with the tight, focused attention of a man who wishes everything to be perfect, as if preparing an altar or a wedding bed.<br/>
<br/>
He paused facing the unlit pyre, hands on hips, his head canted to one side.  Then with a curt nod, to himself or some invisible watcher, he turned and crossed the short distance back to Jack.  His posture was straight, rigid, almost military, and it sat very strangely on those familiar, often-slumped narrow shoulders.<br/>
<br/>
“Everything’s ready,” the Doctor said as he came to a halt before Jack.  Beside them was an end table from the TARDIS library, looking small and lost out in the open.  As he spoke, the Doctor reached out and ran his fingertip lightly around the rim of the goblet that sat, precisely centered, on the table’s otherwise empty surface.<br/>
<br/>
The goblet was large and very heavy — Jack was willing to bet it was solid gold.  Every millimeter of its surface was covered with either swirling figure-of-eight knotwork or the incomprehensible circular patterns of Gallifreyan writing.  It looked like what it was: an ancient tool of solemn ritual.  It was filled nearly to the brim with an oily black liquid that reflected the bronze starlight in subtle ripples.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor looked up, expressionless, to meet Jack’s unhappy gaze.<br/>
<br/>
“I still wish you wouldn’t,” Jack said, unable to help himself.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor blinked.  His greying brown hair was spiky and disorganized, the result of much distracted ruffling.  In contrast his features were so stern and composed he might have appeared angry, but Jack knew this alien better than he knew most members of his own species, so he saw grief instead — gnawing, tearing, nearly-unbearable loss.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not the same for me.” the Doctor said, voice distant, eyes black and fathomless.  “You know that.  It’s . . . what we do, my kind, when we can’t go on being who we are and can’t wait for Time to change us.  Even Romana did it, when the things she’d learned traveling with me outstripped her training.  Besides, you’ve seen what this incarnation is like without Rose."  He shook his head, voice dropping to a near-whisper.  "I’m not going back to that.”<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll miss you,” Jack replied, keeping eye contact, no matter how difficult it was.  If he’d been mortal, he doubted he’d have been able to manage.  It was like looking into the last desolate night at the end of Time.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor raised his chin slightly and sniffed, a sharp intake of breath that was achingly familiar — a familiar gesture repeated for what was almost certainly the last time.  It all but broke Jack’s heart, though he let it pass by unremarked.<br/>
<br/>
“That’s a very human attitude,” the Doctor told him, grief momentarily replaced with chiding arrogance.<br/>
<br/>
“Stands to reason, seeing as I’m human,” Jack replied, keeping his voice even, refusing to be irritated in these last few precious minutes.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor’s arrogance faded.  “So you are,” he murmured, and his features softened.   He lowered his chin, and the dim light of the nameless star picked out the hidden whorls of gold in his dark eyes.  Cool, gentle fingertips reached up to brush Jack’s cheek.  Jack leaned into the touch, craving it, trying to imprint it in his memory forever.<br/>
<br/>
“What I feel for you won’t change,” the Doctor said, his voice low, warm and reassuring, though he didn't open his thoughts.  “Nothing could change that.  And I’ll still be me, even if I'm different.  I’m always me.”<br/>
<br/>
Jack swallowed.  “I know,” he said, voice rough.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor’s fingers traced Jack’s jawline, leaving a path of faintest, chill fire, before falling away.<br/>
<br/>
“It’s time,” the Doctor said, face and voice hardening again.  With abrupt purpose, he turned from Jack and reached for the unlit torch standing ready, its butt-end jammed into the ground to hold it upright and ready for use.  Paying no further attention to Jack, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to light the torch.  When it was burning brightly, he strode forward and touched it to the base of the pyre in several places, before flinging it into the blaze that flared up.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor stepped backward, silhouetted against the quick, golden light, until he was again even with Jack and the goblet on its dedicated table.  He took a deep breath, and began to speak.<br/>
<br/>
Jack had heard these words — or a variation thereof — once before, long ago, at another, lesser funeral pyre.  Then, he’d been listening to distant echoes, and hadn’t understood a word.  He still didn’t understand much, the TARDIS being unable to adequately translate the concepts for human understanding, but he got a few snippets, the gist of things.  Still, he only paid fleeting attention to meanings, since the words themselves were spoken in a way that made them music.  On that level, the Doctor’s eulogy needed no translation at all.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor made full use of his unique respiratory system, weaving vocal harmonies with intricate precision.  Jack bowed his head and let the flow of sound carry him along.  Half-consciously, he hooked his left hand over his right wrist, left thumb running back and forth over the small, new bump in the leather of his Time Agent’s wristband.  The cause of the bump was a small gold and coral pendant tucked into an inner pocket.  The original carved rose design was worn nearly smooth by the years that had passed — an impressive sum, spun out into centuries by the best efforts of the Doctor’s biomedical knowledge — but now it was his again, to keep for memory's sake until the end of Time.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, the Doctor spoke three English names, pronouncing them with extreme care, each vowel broken into a perfect chord.<br/>
<br/>
“Rose Marion Tyler.”<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor’s jaw snapped shut with a convulsive click of teeth and he fell silent.  Sometime during the recitation, moisture had drawn two gleaming tracks down his cheeks, though his voice had never once faltered.  He swallowed convulsively, then, smoothly as a man executing a dance move, he turned to Jack and drew him into a fierce, passionate kiss.<br/>
<br/>
Jack responded with everything he had, half-hoping still to change the Doctor's mind — or at least delay the next step for a little while longer — but all too soon the Doctor pulled away and reached for the goblet.<br/>
<br/>
Gritting his teeth, Jack watched as the Doctor — his last words spoken and his last kiss shared — raised the goblet in a silent toast before downing its contents in three long swallows.  He managed to set the goblet back on the table before he collapsed.<br/>
<br/>
Jack, at the ready, caught him and eased him to the ground.  A quick brush of his fingers along the major artery at the Doctor's throat confirmed that both hearts had stopped beating.  Not long, then . . .<br/>
<br/>
Jack stepped back.  One second, two, and then the Doctor’s exposed skin burst into a flare of golden light that rivaled Rose’ funeral pyre in intensity.  Jack tried to watch the moment of transformation, as the man he loved became someone else, but in the end the light was simply too bright and Jack had to look away.<br/>
<br/>
When the glow faded, new eyes opened and focused on him, their depths alien, fathomless, and familiar.  Firelight picked out whorls and patterns of bright silver wound through slate-blue irises.<br/>
<br/>
“Jack,” said a voice that was changed, and yet not different at all.<br/>
<br/>
Jack leaned forward and offered the new Doctor a hand up.<br/>
<br/>
---<br/>
<br/>
Later, in the TARDIS, they lay together skin-to-skin, Jack’s arm around new shoulders that were already well on the way to becoming familiar.  The Doctor was asleep, breathing softly and evenly.  Jack, worn out by the events of the last few days, was half-dreaming, the closest he ever came to sleeping.<br/>
<br/>
Images, shaped from memory and imagination swirled through his brain, but he was brought to full alertness in a heartbeat by a beloved voice speaking his name.<br/>
<br/>
Not “Jack.”  His <i>name</i>.<br/>
<br/>
His eyes snapped open, then squinted half-shut again.  The formerly dark bedroom was flooded with light, as if in echo of the earlier funeral pyre.  Most of the illumination came from the fur and eyes of an enormous golden Wolf far too large to fit within the room’s boundaries, though She managed to do so anyway.  The rest shone from the air itself and from the small, slim, human shape standing between the bed and the Wolf.<br/>
<br/>
It was Rose, but Rose as she had been hundreds of years ago: a lithe nineteen-year-old girl, in the jeans, hoodie and trainers she'd worn on Satellite Five.  She smiled at Jack, her eyes brighter than stars; then she stretched lazily, sensuously, arms reaching straight overhead, as if enjoying newfound freedom from tight and restrictive clothing.<br/>
<br/>
“So,” she said when she relaxed again, and her voice was perfectly ordinary but still had the power to resonate deep in the marrow of Jack's bones.  “It’s done.  A good mortal life, if I say so myself.”  She smiled, the expression so young and free he had to smile back.  Seeing her again should have hurt, but didn't.  All Jack felt was a calm, steady wonder, edged with pleasure.<br/>
<br/>
“I'm probably dreaming,” he replied, “but it’s good to see you.”<br/>
<br/>
Rose put her hands on her hips and the Wolf rolled Her luminous eyes.  “Oh, ye of little faith,” Rose said, sounding as if she was having a hard time keeping from laughing.  The golden glow in the air swirled into vague, twining shapes, and Jack recognized it as the TARDIS’s ethereal heart-light: the third aspect of the triple Goddess present and accounted for.  “Now I’m starting to understand why Someone Else said that, once.  Is it so hard to believe We’re really here?”<br/>
<br/>
Jack’s heart went black, even in the face of the shining presence(s) before him, and he replied.  “Yeah, it is.  I’ve been dead, and there’s nothing after.  I know.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, there’s something all right,” Rose said, her voice bright and cheerful.  “You just haven’t gone far enough to find it yet.  That’s why I'm here.  The three of us — me, the TARDIS and the Wolf — we did four impossible things in Time and Space.  You’ve seen three of ‘em — you <i>are</i> one of them — but it’s time you knew about the fourth.”<br/>
<br/>
“That being?” Jack asked.<br/>
<br/>
“I am the Bad Wolf.  I bring life, and I bring death," Rose said, with great warmth and affection.  "It was my Word that brought you back from the dark, and now I tell you this: when the right time comes, immortal fixed point or not, you will finally die — within Time like any other living being, not lost past its ending — and find your way though the darkness to what’s beyond. "  She smiled.  "It's a paradox, but we'll make it work."<br/>
<br/>
Jack exhaled slowly as Rose's words sank into his heart and mind set to work dissolving the small, hard knot of unhappy expectation he'd carried for far too many centuries.  The wash of hope and relief that flooded him was intoxicating and he dared to let himself relax into it, the way he might let his body relax into a hot, soothing bath.<br/>
<br/>
"That's good to know.  Thank you," he told the Goddess.  It seemed too little to say, but he'd never meant it more completely in his long life.  All three of Her aspects smiled at him, each in their different ways.<br/>
<br/>
"You've a long way to go yet, though, both of you," Rose added, gently.  "More lives to live and things to be and people to love."  She paused, and her gaze shifted to the sleeping Doctor in his new body.  When she met Jack's eyes again, her face was full of all the love and tenderness an immortal heart and mind could hold.  It was . . . impressive.  "My Champions.  Look after each other, yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"You know we will," Jack replied.<br/>
<br/>
"I know," Rose agreed.  She smiled.  "But I had to ask, anyway."<br/>
<br/>
"Will I ever see you again?" he asked.<br/>
<br/>
"You know you will."  Her smile widened into her old, dear cheeky grin, tongue between her teeth, teasing.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Jack said.  "I know.  But I had to ask."<br/>
<br/>
She laughed, and the Wolf's tongue lolled between Her fangs in a fierce canine smile.  "I deserved that," Rose admitted.<br/>
<br/>
"You did," the Wolf agreed, the first time She'd spoken.  "But now it's time We were on Our way."  The TARDIS, in her Goddess-incarnation (which both was and wasn't the same as the ship currently enfolding them all), sang agreement.  Rose nodded.<br/>
<br/>
"If I stay any longer, the Vortex'll start warping.  So . . . see you later," she said, with a wave of her fingers.<br/>
<br/>
"Not if I see you first," Jack said, unable to resist the opportunity to get in the last word with a Goddess.<br/>
<br/>
Laughing again, she let him.<br/>
<br/>
--<br/>
<br/>
With a jolt, Jack opened his eyes (though he'd have sworn they <i>were</i>open).  This time there was nothing more to see than the dimly-lit bedroom.  The ordinary, mortal TARDIS hummed softly in the background.   The Doctor had shifted; now his arm was wrapped around Jack's ribage, his cheek cradled on Jack's chest.  The trailing sweep of his hair masked much of his face, but didn't hide the square jaw and the strong line of his cheekbone.  Such a young face.  Jack hoped that meant the Doctor was planning to wear it for a long time to come.<br/>
<br/>
Jack exhaled slowly, still wrapped in the peace the dream-visitation had brought him.  It would be easy to dismiss as the mere fantasy he'd first thought it, but Jack had no inclination to do so.  He wasn't much for the standard religions, but he believed in Rose, and in the Wolf of which she was part.  Not a name well-known in the annals of Time and Space, just a very personal Goddess with a congregation of two.<br/>
<br/>
That suited Jack fine.  What mattered to him was the certain knowledge of loving and being loved by something greater than himself.  It was a sensation as ever-present as the immortal life that was the Wolf's gift: the lingering hint of a continuing presence, just past the edges of perception.<br/>
<br/>
The Doctor's arm tightened around Jack, pressing the Time Lord's cool skin more closely against warm human flesh.<br/>
<br/>
"Rose," the Doctor whispered, as if to someone sharing the bed with them, and smiled in his sleep.<br/>
<br/>
Jack smiled, too, and realized he was looking forward to the future in a way he hadn't for a long time.  <i>Funny, "He dies at the end" is usually a great way to put a damper on the rest of a story, but not this time.  Then again, when have the three of us </i>ever<i> done things the normal way?</i><br/>
<br/>
He suppressed a chuckle, not wanting to wake the new Doctor, who definitely needed his rest.  Instead, he closed his eyes and let the memory of golden light ease him back into his dreams, safe in the knowledge that some bonds can never truly be broken and that "impossible" is always a relative term, depending on the company you keep.<br/>
<br/>
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</p><p><span class="u">Disclaimer:</span>  All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners.  The original characters and plot are the property of the author.  No money is being made from this work.  No copyright infringement is intended.<br/>
<br/>
This story archived at <a href="http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=36418">http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=36418</a></p><p>
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